Scrooge accomplished much good – prior to his Christmas Eve epiphany.
MLLG Christmas 2021 Posting . . .
Ebenezer Scrooge Gets A Bum Rap
By: George Noga – December 5, 2021
Ever since Charles Dickens published his allegorical novella, A Christmas Carol, in 1843, Ebenezer Scrooge, before he was visited by the ghost of Jacob Marley on Christmas Eve, has been universally regarded as a pathetic hoarder. For nearly two centuries the word Scrooge has been both an eponym and epithet for miserly. Scrooge gets a bum rap; although unwittingly, he was really a beneficent humanitarian.
The definition of beneficent is doing good or resulting in good; a humanitarian is someone who promotes human welfare. Scrooge’s behavior meets these definitions even before his epiphany and reclamation on Christmas Eve. Whether he intended to be beneficent and humanitarian is immaterial; his actions meet the definitions.
Scrooge was a rich, hard-working, parsimonious businessman who hoarded his wealth. His clerk, Bob Cratchit, worked long hours for low pay, the norm in that milieu. Cratchit and hordes of others, who had been largely invisible in rural England, flooded English cities during the dawn of the Industrial Revolution and suddenly became very visible. Their lives in the cities were bleak, but vastly better than the devastating rural poverty they voluntarily fled. Scrooge’s actions did not harm anyone but himself.
Although his wealth did not benefit Scrooge personally as he took his gruel alone by the embers of a dying fire, it was a godsend to humanity. It provided capital to fuel the industrial revolution, then just beginning. While Dickens’ books paint a grim picture, every metric of human well being reveals a golden age for workers started circa 1840: wages exploded, life expectancy and literacy soared, child nutrition and mortality improved and child labor receded as school enrollment surged. There had never before been a comparable period of prosperity – and it has continued to our day!
All these blessings were made possible only by the capital accumulated by Ebenezer Scrooge and others like him. Scrooge’s tight-fisted parsimony and self-denial, whether wittingly not, was a great gift to humanity. Scrooge helped to fund the factories, railroads and equipment that greatly increased workers’ productivity and wages. Indeed, it is not an exaggeration to call Scrooge a beneficent humanitarian.
“May God bless us, every one!” (Tiny Tim)
Scrooge’s thrift benefitted humanity more than if he had tried to do good via Scrooge & Marley. Marley’s ghost fails to understand that by minding one’s business, one best serves mankind. Profit is the best metric of a business’ value to society and Scrooge’s business was highly profitable. Thus, Scrooge had no duty to give back as he already gave via his business. Scrooge’s capital benefitted humanity far more than if he had donated to charity or if government had taxed it in a misguided attempt to do good. The next time you hear Scrooge used as an epithet, remember, it is . . . humbug.
We end this, our final scheduled posting of 2021, by echoing the final words in Dickens’ novella, as spoken by Tiny Tim: “May God bless us, every one“
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Outside-the-box analysis, such as contained in this post, is what readers have come to expect from MLLG. Precious few people would defend the behavior of Ebenezer Scrooge before his Christmas Eve epiphany; yet, one must acknowledge his actions harmed no one and, to the contrary, resulted in great economic benefit to humanity. You may expect more of the same when we resume our postings on January 16, 2022.
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL OUR READERS. WE ARE TAKING A HOLIDAY BREAK AND WILL RESUME ON JANUARY 16, 2022; HOWEVER, WATCH FOR POSSIBLE UNSCHEDULED POSTINGS.
Our next scheduled posting is on January 16, 2022.